Blast cuts power

Many residents, UGA left in dark

Posted: Thursday, August 16, 2001

By Stephen Gurrsgurr@onlineathens.com

An explosion at a Georgia Power substation off Old Hull Road disrupted power for thousands of Athenians during the lunch hour Wednesday, knocking out traffic signals and halting electrical service to the University of Georgia.

Power was restored without incident within 30 minutes, at about 12:25 p.m. Wednesday.

Athens-Clarke and UGA police scrambled to direct traffic at dozens of busy intersections from North Avenue to College Station and Lexington roads. There was only one reported accident during the time power was out -- a two-car accident with no injuries at the Athens Perimeter and Olympic Drive.

The failure of a 115,000-volt transmission breaker at the Athena substation ruptured an oil-filled breaker tank, sparking a massive explosion and fire that destroyed the breaker, said Doug McGowan, region distribution manager for the Georgia Power Co. The site was unmanned and no one was injured in the explosion.

''It would have gotten your attention,'' McGowan said of the blast. ''That's one of the reasons there are those fences around them.''

UGA Police Chief Chuck Horton said the outage caused no major problems, though some folks were stuck in elevators during the blackout. The university police switchboard was swamped with callers ''kind enough to tell us we had a power outage,'' Horton quipped.

McGowan said approximately 13,000 power customers in eastern Clarke county were affected, with a ripple effect that may have reached as far as 40 miles into neighboring counties. There were reports of scattered power outages in Oconee and Oglethorpe counties.

Catastrophic breaker failures are rare, McGowan said. The cause of Wednesday's failure was not immediately known, but earlier lightning damage may have weakened the breaker, he said.

Georgia Power officials expect to have the breaker repaired within the next few days. In the meantime, a hole in the system's power grid makes it more vulnerable to isolated outages in the event of fallen trees or accidents.

This article published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Thursday, August 16, 2001.